I made a point this week of watching roughly equal parts CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing.

CNN was the clear loser, falsely reporting arrests of the bombers and then trying to spin a misleading explanation.

I noticed that Fox's initial coverage was better than its norm. In past events, Fox often has reported the most sensational casualty estimates, that later proved exaggerated. This time, I was impressed that Fox restrained itself in that regard. On the downside, Megyn Kelley did follow CNN's lead in prematurely reporting arrests of the bombers (which she backed off from after only a few minutes).

MSNBC isn't really a "news" network, but on breaking stories like this, uses NBC's news team. Pete Williams proved to be the most reliable reporter of the week, holding off from speculation yet being quick to report real news.

Did you notice any particularly good or bad news coverage?

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When I got called to active duty post 9/11 one of the things I did was being posted at a major command. I was the action officer for 12 States. In our situation room there were four TV's on. Two on the 24 hours news networks and the other two on what ever shows we felt like watching at the time, between the major networks. The reason for this was: If anything happened in the States it would be a local TV station or stations to be first on the scene and broadcasting live. Well before any government agency could gear up and be on scene. Nothing major at all happened while I was there.

Tulare CA

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Well, I sure did have a major brain fart while writing the OP. How could I have left out the NY Post, which plastered all over its front page the photo of an innocent high school kid, falsely identifying him as the bomber being sought by the FBI? My only defense for leaving the Post out, is that it doesn't really belong in the category of serious newspapers anyway.

Belle Chasse LA

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Twitter and facebook are the preferred media for lunatics to get their message out.

Sanford NC

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Twitter posted pictures of completely innocent people and called them suspects. Even though they may have accidently stumbled across the actual suspects their credibility is zilch. Which makes anything they publish worthless.

Sanford NC

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Twitter fucked up this entire thing. I am glad I do not give a rat's ass who tweets what.

That may seem paradoxical given that I quoted several twitter feeds this week... I shouldn't have even bothered.... they were of no value.

Windermere FL

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While I respect your view on how this all went down, I have to disagree with whom got to more people where it really made a difference.

Twitter was so abuzz with pictures and information long before any of the news outlets did. The original pictures identifying the suspects and who they were were pulled off Facebook and posted to all 4 twitter pages of local Boston PD and FD. It was nearly 30 minutes AFTER I got a RT from a friend in Boston that I saw the same picture on any MSM outlet. The LEO's didn't ask the media to stop reporting, it asked the local populace to stop reporting via Social media.

Sure a lot of it was random speculation, but I would still argue the MSM got all of their speculation from social media first.

Long Beach CA

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I am not a fan of MSM, BUT they did get the pictures out to the public of the suspects. They did locate family and witnesses for the police, and they cooperated with the police. Much of the online crap was just that, online speculation crap. Which sometimes did end up with the MSM. But the crap originated with social media sites full of arm chair sleuths that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. If anything the incident reaffirmed MSM as still viable and useful, and more reliable than internet social sites.

It pains me to say they did a fair job, better then they usually do.

Sanford NC

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The one thing I noticed is how many television and radio "news" reporters (regardless of affiliation) were behind on the actual happenings by at least 30 minutes from their online counterparts

There's no excuse anymore to "report" on things that can be debunked in less time that it takes to query your smartphone's web browser. Anyone with a Reddit account knew more than Fox, MSNBC, or CNN. It's a sad state of affairs when the only reason you continue to exist is to keep pushing an agenda or create needless panic.

A good friend of mine put it best. "Twitter (and social media in general) just hammered the final nail into main stream media news' coffin."

Long Beach CA

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Fox and CNN did what they always do...pop culturalized the disaster complete with graphics, bright colors, fancy fonts, complelling music and lazar light shows To MSNBC's credit, the did none of that, and were the best cable coverage NBC was head and shoulders above ABC and CBS, and as always, NPR and PBS were in a two way tie for the best coverage overall

Rosemont IL

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I made a point this week of watching roughly equal parts CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing.

CNN was the clear loser, falsely reporting arrests of the bombers and then trying to spin a misleading explanation.

I noticed that Fox's initial coverage was better than its norm. In past events, Fox often has reported the most sensational casualty estimates, that later proved exaggerated. This time, I was impressed that Fox restrained itself in that regard. On the downside, Megyn Kelley did follow CNN's lead in prematurely reporting arrests of the bombers (which she backed off from after only a few minutes).

MSNBC isn't really a "news" network, but on breaking stories like this, uses NBC's news team. Pete Williams proved to be the most reliable reporter of the week, holding off from speculation yet being quick to report real news.

Did you notice any particularly good or bad news coverage?

Belle Chasse LA

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TOPIC: Media winners and losers this week

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